Well-known drug-legalization activist Dana Larsen is being sued for allegedly not paying a grower for supplying weed.
Brent Bryksa yesterday (May 30) filed a notice of civil claim in BC Supreme Court alleging that Larsen, Dorita Dempster and the Vancouver Dispensary Society owe him $235,831 for supplying medical marijuana for resale.
Bryksa invoiced the defendants between February 2023 and June 2023, he claimed.
"The defendants repeatedly promised the plaintiff that the debt would be paid, but failed to do so," Bryksa alleged.
"The defendants were enriched through having received and sold the medical marijuana without paying the debt to the plaintiff, and there is no juristic reason for their enrichment."
No response to the notice of civil claim has yet been filed. BIV phoned Larsen to see if he had a comment on the lawsuit and he said, "No, not at this time."
None of the allegations in the lawsuit has been proven in court.
Larsen operated retail cannabis stores long before Canada in October 2018 legalized recreational cannabis sales, and he was open about being willing to be arrested for breaking the law.
About five years ago, Larsen was one of the cannabis retailers who had failed to get City of Vancouver licences to operate within certain areas, and who had lost in court after the city petitioned them to close.
He then complied with the BC Court of Appeal's May 2019 order to close his unlicensed store at 880 East Hastings Street.
Larsen had previously said that he had intended to keep that store open as long as he possibly could. He confirmed on Twitter on June 4, 2019, however, that the Medicinal Cannabis Dispensary, for which he is a director, would close.
“I was open to being arrested and discussed this with my lawyer at length,” he said on Twitter on June 5, 2019.
“Problem is that staff could also be arrested, we could face fines and seizures that truly put us out of business, we could face problems at our Thurlow [Street] spot. I'm not giving up. This is a tactical retreat!”
Larsen told BIV in 2022 that he believed legal cannabis had taken some sales away from black-market operators. Still, he added, consumers who buy a lot of cannabis tend to stick with unlicensed suppliers because their products are less expensive.
"The occasional cannabis users – most people who use cannabis – will have a few puffs on the weekend and smoke a little weed once in a while," he said. "They're not daily users, and they are using a relatively small amount. Those are the people much more likely to go to legal shops."
Larsen has in some previous years been an organizer of large protests on April 20 near Sunset Beach, where much unlicensed cannabis retail activity also took place.
He has recently pivoted hs advocacy toward legalizing sales for other illegal drugs.
Larsen recently spoke to Vancouver City Council in support of a motion from Green Party councillors Adriane Carr and Pete Fry to have the city consider regulating business licences for retailers of psilocybin, peyote, mescaline, auyahuasca and kratom.
He is also a director of the Strathcona Tea Society, a non-profit that handles the finances and logistics of a West Broadway dispensary and two others in Vancouver.
Vancouver’s chief licence inspector Sarah Hicks last month ordered the operators of that magic mushroom dispensary on West Broadway to immediately close or face enforcement.
